Now, without meaning to sound arrogant, I've never really been bad at anything. That said, I've never been the best at anything. When I was younger, my sister and I used to go swimming before school and were back in the pool, after school. My parents had to make a decision about whether they were going to push us both at this, or whether they were going to encourage us to be more rounded and do some other stuff. Turned out they didn't think it was healthy to make us so focused on one thing from an early age and so enrolled us in brownies and took us to horse riding lessons. Hurrah! I'm quite glad actually; I didn't want to turn out like one of these brats you see on TV, super competitive whose world ends when they go to secondary school and find out they're only mediocre.
I was also bright. Not like 'Oh, my God Mark, we need to enrol our daughter in to Mensa' but I was always in the top 5 of my class and this carried through to secondary school. Never played netball before? No problem, be captain of our team. Never spoken French before? Well, do you GCSE a year early and yes, I got an A. I think this pissed off my sister as she had to work so hard to get good marks and be in some of the teams at school, I rock up with my dodgy bob and am the talk of the town (well, the PE department. It was like any other school- you're only important if the PE teachers say you are). I got all As (well, a B in Maths) in my exams and was faced with the prospect of picking a subject to do at uni. It wasn't presented as an option at my school that you could do anything but go to university. It was pitched to you like 'You will not get a good job if you don't go to university' and I totally bought it- we all did.
However, you have to have a good idea of what you wanted to do/ what you wanted to be career wise to pick something to waste three years on at uni. Not all of us can be like Mr Pink- do five years of a medical course only to decide he wanted to be a philosophy and ethics teacher. His twenties must have been one long stream of library fines. Trouble was - I had no idea what I wanted to do.
When I was in year two, I remember writing down that I wanted to be a nurse. I drew a picture and everything such was my dedication to the cause. I think all young girls want to be nurses; something about mothering someone and looking after those that need your special care. That's why my first love was Edward Scissorhands. It's the second film I ever watched and I completely fell in love with him- I think I just wanted to look after him. Give the poor bugger something to eat he was so bloody pale. So I wanted to be a nurse until I was nine when I announced that I was saving up for law school as I was going to be a lawyer. I think around this time I watched some shit American film about a girl who becomes a lawyer and 'Oooh, isn't law skewl so great!' But it stuck with me until I was eighteen when I needed to decide what I actually wanted to do.
Does anyone know what they want to do when they're eighteen? Look at Britney. She wanted to be a superstar when she was eighteen. She got just that and ended up bald by twenty six. What stupid person keeps alive the notion that you have to pick what you want to do with the rest of your life when you're eighteen? There was a brief time I wanted to work in a petrol station because the smell is so addictive (in a non-solvent abuse kind of way) but that doesn't mean being a petrol station attendant or whatever they are is a viable career path.
I've never been that bad at anything so really, I can be/ do whatever the hell I want. So who has made me feel like I made my bed when I was eighteen and I need to lie in it until retirement?
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